In early 2004, a relatively small group of people that included two York County commissioners -- Lori Mitrick and Doug Kilgore, since voted out of office -- was determined to take by force about 915 acres located in Lower Windsor Township to create a "heritage" park.

Of those 915 acres, 80 acres represented land owned by Lancaster County developer Peter Alecxih Jr. at Highpoint, plus another 75 acres or so owned by a public utility and about 745 acres on Lauxmont Farms, owned by the Kohr family.

In March 2004, the county announced a declaration of taking for Alecxih's 80 acres. A week later, county commissioners indicated an interest in taking the Lauxmont Farms land by eminent domain as well.

As time passed, the proposed land grab was limited to the 80 acres at Highpoint and another 411 acres of Lauxmont Farms along the Susquehanna River.

Stuck along the southern edge of all that acreage was a 187-acre plot thought to be the site of the last known Susquehannock Indian village in York County, home to about 900 members of the tribe and including at least four burial grounds.

It is, in fact, pretty much the only land in the Lauxmont package with easy access to the river. And at the time, park proponents used the Indian village as the centerpiece of their argument in favor of another federal/state/county park.

But if that had been true, they wouldn't have needed to condemn 825 acres of privately owned land to make the park a reality.

Of all the reasons given

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or implied for creating the heritage park and taking the land for the park by condemnation -- limiting sprawl, preventing future residential development of the land, increasing tourism, forcing the Kohr family to pay off their considerable bankruptcy debt and reducing the impact of development on local infrastructure -- nothing was ever more important to many York countians than the preservation of the Susquehannock Indian village.

To heck with all the other stuff.

And it was never necessary for the county to attempt to take those 187 acres by eminent domain, because the Kohr family was always ready and willing, according to an interview I had with Ron Kohr and his attorney several years ago, to sell that land to the county. They seemed to recognize the historic importance of the land and its value to residents of York County. And county officials knew that was true.

The Kohrs were prepared to make the parcel available for inclusion in the proposed Susquehanna Riverlands Preservation Project -- at a reasonable price -- as long as the county reversed its intention to take hundreds of additional acres by condemnation.

Members of the present York County board of commissioners entered into negotiations with the Kohrs months ago, in an attempt to resolve the eminent domain case and a subsequent civil rights lawsuit against the county.

And now we learn that the purchase of the Indian village has moved back to the top of the agenda. York County is, in fact, applying for a $2 million state grant in the hope of using the money to preserve the Indian village for future generations of York countians.

Though no commitments have been made by either party, it seems clear that both sides have an interest in preserving the Indian village. They're on the right track. The Byrd Leibhart site, where the Susquehannocks lived for more than 200 years, was placed on Preservation Pennsylvania Inc.'s annual list of most endangered historic properties in 2003.

It is worth saving.

And I hope this board of commissioners can make it happen -- at a price taxpayers can afford and without using eminent domain.

Columns by Larry A. Hicks, Dispatch columnist, run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. E-mail: lhicks@yorkdispatch.com.